HUMBOLDT, ALEXANDER, CUVIER, DESFONTAINES, DE ROSSEL, BIOT, THENARD, GAY-LUSSAC, ARAGO.

Rapport fait à l'Academie des Sciences, le lundi 23 Avril 1821, sur le Voyage autour du Monde de la Corvette l'Uranie, commandée par M. de Freycinet.

(Paris, Crochard, 1821).

No wrappers, as extracted. In: "Annales de Chimie et de Physique, Par MM. Gay-Lussac et Arago.", tome 16, Cahier 4. Pp. 389-427.

First printing of the official raport on captain Freycinet's voyage.
He sailed from Toulon on 17 September 1817 in L'Uranie with his wife Rose who secreted herself aboard, and who wrote a separate account of the voyage. After refreshing at the Cape of Good Hope and Mauritius he landed at Shark Bay on 12 September 1818 where he set up an observatory, thoroughly surveyed the inlets and the coastal districts and removed the plate left by Willem de Vlamingh, which he had found and re-erected in 1801. He then sailed north to Timor. His accounts and description of the landscape and life and customs of that and other islands in the East Indies captivated the attention of people in Europe much more than his Australian reports, and a widespread interest developed in the expedition. Leaving Timor on 27 November he sailed via the Moluccas, the Carolines, the Marianas, and the Sandwich Islands and reached Port Jackson on 19 November 1819, the scientists on board adding constantly to their store of information on hydrography, botany, cartography and anthropology. After spending Christmas ashore, they sailed on 26 December and, falling in with the westerlies, set a course for Cape Horn.
On 13 February 1820 L'Uranie was wrecked on the Falkland Islands; the scientific records and notes were saved before the vessel foundered, but 2500 of the 4175 plant specimens were lost. Freycinet returned to France in November 1820 and died on 18 August 1842.

Order-nr.: 59787